None of the animals run for a long time because they don’t have the ability to sweat, humans were only able to hunt fast animals because we had endurance and could run for a much longer time than say a gazelle for example. We literally had an edge on other animals for being able to run for a long time. Don’t look at what animals who are killed day and night by humans for an inspiration on how we should live, that makes no sense. Animals can’t appreciate art, does that mean we shouldn’t appreciate art? no.
If running really dealt damage on you, I’m sure almost everyone would know. Our body has the ability to adapt, at first running 5 and a half miles seems extremely strenuous on us, but after doing it a lot, it’ll be a breeze. Tell an olympic marathon runner that running for 8 km will do damage on his body when he runs 40 Km+ for a living and he’ll laugh at your face.
Just because something seems hard on your body at first doesn’t mean it will always be hard on you. The whole point is to make it easy for you so your body can endure more. If all I ever do is walk/hike, then all I’ll ever be able to do is walk/hike. Last year when I first got into cross country it took me nearly an hour to run 5K and I was extremely tired, by the end of the season I could run 5 km in 20 mins no sweat. What if you told me not to do cross country then when I was starting off and just believed you?
